But in August 1922, Dr. Frederick Allen had patients who could not wait, like Elizabeth. Allen left for Toronto to secure insulin. While he was gone, word leaked through his clinic about the breakthrough. Patients ''who had not been out of bed for weeks began to trail weakly about, clinging to walls and furniture,'' wrote one nurse. ''Big stomachs, skin-and-bone necks, skull-like faces . . . they looked like an old Flemish painter's depiction of a resurrection after famine. It was a resurrection, a crawling stirring, as of some vague springtime.''